Re: [Groff] poll: which macro packages are in common use / and why.

[Keith MARSHALL]

Gaius Mulley wrote:
> I use ms for most of my groff work (papers, notes, exam papers,
> assignments).  I find ms easy to adapt - I usually .mso s.tmac and
> .mso www.tmac and then override individual macros with custom
> variants.  Lecture slide production is done with a home grown macro
> package which has a lot of html tag information.
>
> I'd love to see the pdf marks become integrated into the groff
> release.

This is what I am working on, at the moment, as time permits.

I have so far implemented a pdfmark macro package, which *should*
be ms, mm, etc. compatible -- I have created rudimentary bindings
for ms.  At present, I am putting together a document to explain
the operation of the macros, which I am providing.

Currently working, I have:

- .pdfmark -- inserts pdfmark codes in the raw PostScript stream.

- .pdfview -- selects an initial document view.

- .pdfinfo -- adds document meta-data keys.

- .pdfhref -- handles references, in the following subclasses:

  O -- document outline (bookmarks); handled in *one* pass,
       with full resolution of outline hierarchy.

  M -- mark a named reference destination.

  L -- place an active link to a named PDF reference mark;
       handles references within same document, or in any
       other PDF document; needs two passes to resolve
       internal references.

  F -- sets a user defined macro, to control formatting of
       references placed by the 'L' subclass operator.

  W -- place an active link to a web resource, specified
       by URI.

- .pdfnote -- place (short) an iconic note in the document.

- .pdfsync -- does some essential housekeeping.

I still have a number of problems to resolve, particularly with
links placed by '.pdfhref L', and the documentation still has
some way to go.  Nevertheless, I will post a preview tarball if
there is sufficient interest.

Best regards,
Keith.